Royole FlexPai, World’s First Foldable Smartphone, Hits the Market

Fremont, CA, United States (4E) – A virtually unknown California-based tech firm that first made T-shirts has become the first company in the world to market a foldable phone.

By introducing its “Royole FlexPai,” which became the world’s first commercial foldable smartphone to hit the market, Royole Corporation beat Samsung Electronics that was slated to release its own foldable and bendable phone in 2019.

FlexPai will cost between $1,300 to $1,900 depending on technical specifications. Royole Corporation chose to unveil its foldable smartphone in Beijing the other day.

Royole’s investors include Boston-based venture capital firm IDG Capital and Shenzhen Capital Group, which was founded by the city government.

Royole FlexPai combines a smartphone and a tablet with a flexible screen. Because of this, Royole FlexPai can be used either folded or unfolded. This unique feature fives the flexiphone it the portability of a smartphone plus the screen size of a high-definition tablet.

The FlexPai foldable smartphone is based on Royole’s Flexible+ platform that can be easily integrated into a variety of products and applications. It’s elegantly designed with multiple form factors.

When unfolded, FlexPai supports split-screen mode and multi-tasking. It also supports drag-and-drop across applications, enabling it to share features just as a computer does. It automatically adjusts screen sizes for enjoyable video-watching and gaming experiences.

Folded, FlexPai supports dual screens with separate but simultaneous operations. The interface on the primary and secondary screens mutually interacts with each other. They can also act independently and use different interfaces without interfering with one another.

Users can get notifications on the edge screen side bar, which can be used to manage calls, messages, and other notices that may disturb the primary and secondary screen. The phone’s screen measures 7.8 inches from corner-to-corner. When folded in half, its software adjusts to display all its information on half of the screen. Royole said its display can be folded more than 200,000 times before it’s likely to break.

FlexPai can also be folded at different angles. Its unique Water OS automatically adapts different viewing modes for different folding angles and user scenarios, such as taking photos, office usage, video watching and gaming. The OS is a version of Google’s Android operating system adapted for foldable screens.

FlexPai uses Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8-series flagship SoC. Its camera consists of a 20 megapixel telephoto lens, and a 16 megapixel wide-angle lens. Both cams can be used for both normal photo shooting or taking a selfie, thanks to the dual view camera mode.

Fast-charge is powered by the company’s own Ro-Charge technology, which delivers a speed increase of 40%. Other features include expandable storage with MicroSD, fingerprint ID, USB-C charging, stereo speakers.

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